AIM

MSN

Website URL

ICQ

Yahoo

Jabber

Skype

Location

Interests

The state of cannons right now is a little unusual, and while it has been ok for the game to this point, the upcoming Wreker and Téméraire class ships currently in development are likely to change this and we are soon likely to see a risk of the game balance being rocked in the future, with both Téméraire and Wreker able to equip 36s and with Wreker somewhat more notably likely able to equip 32s on her second deck. Under the game mechanics as they are this means that both these ships would be able to also equip the heaviest standard armament in the game, the 42lb cannon, which a potentially creats some weird looking situations where we have people running around in 3rd rates with 42lb guns or we end up rating Téméraire as a 2nd rate, neither are desirable outcomes in my opinion. I would like to propose breaking up 36s and 42s.
As I understand it the cannons in question are based off the British 42lb and the French 36lb, who's shot weights are as follows:
British 42lb: Shot weight 19.026kg, Gun Weight 3957kg (short cut 42 from Victory, standard would be heavier)
French 36lb: Shot weight 17.064kg, Gun Weight 3643kg (standard long 36 from Boudroit's figures)
With the accessibility of cannon classes currently set up like this:
42lb, 36lb
32lb
24lb
18lb, Edinorog
12lb
9lb
N/A
6lb
4lb
4lb Basic
2lb
This is somewhat of a bizarre set up in two areas, 1st and 7th class. 1st class is bizarre as the only class to contain two distinctly different gun weightings, while 7th class is even more illusive due to the fact it contains no cannons at all, only the 18lb carronade. What would make infinitely more sense to the game would be to rerate everything slightly so as to have cannon classes set up as follows.
42lb
36lb
32lb
24lb
18lb, Edinorog
12lb
9lb
6lb
4lb
4lb Basic
2lb
The other benefits of this is you could reassess which ships could potentially equip each class of cannon more precisely, potentially leaving the most powerful 42lb for Pavel, Victory and leaving Ocean, Santissima, Téméraire, Bucentaure and Wreker equipped with the slightly smaller calibre of 36lb gun, this would not only give a slightly more realistic historic armament flavour but also create a nice little way to look at balance more seriously, with the 36lb gun being a little worse on the DPS, which allows both Pavel and Victory to be more competitive amongst their similarly rated ships, hopefully promoting more variety in combat.
As a little side note I'm uncertain whether Ocean would be able to carry 42s or not, the 300kg difference between the French 36 and the British shortest variant of the 42 isn't hugely significant to a ship the size of Ocean although it would be a nice balance point, meanwhile I severely doubt Santissima would be able to mount the British 42 safely, had she not been wrecked in the storm and then enlisted into the British fleet following Trafalgar I can't see her being armed with anything heavier than the British 32s.
To summarise, please could we consider splitting the 42 and 36lb guns up into separate classes to avoid potential balance issues with the current ships in development but also add more flavour and realistic armaments to the various ships we already have in game for the pursuit of balance and accuracy.
Thanks for reading.